The Big Reveal: The Venue, The Cochrane Ranche House

* All photographs by Mark Shannon of Mark 11 Photography

Note: I used the words “Cochrane Ranche House” a LOT because when I was researching the venue, I couldn’t find any fugging photos of it and so I want this post to actually COME UP if some bride is trying get a better feel for the venue.

We were lucky. We got married at the Cochrane Ranche House – a stunning venue north of Calgary. It used to be a working ranch back in the day but now the town of Cochrane runs it. It’s funny – people would always ask me “Oh, is that the so-and-so’s Ranche?” as if I am all the sudden the librarian in charge of the history of the place. How should I know? I would always answer “Maybe, but now it’s run by the Town of Cochrane”, trying to change the subject, which inevitably would get a  “Oh, well ya the so-and-so’s Ranche.” Sure. It’s the Cochrane Ranche House. Cochrane. Ranche. House.

ANYWAYS RANTING ASIDE >

Here it is! I can’t write a glowing enough review of it – the pictures will have to speak my thousand words.

Here is our ceremony site, in the courtyard at the Cochrane Ranche House, pre-show obviously. They have a gorgeous back up ceremony location inside but of course – this was ideal.

That my friends, is the rolling foothills of Alberta. So much love for it, it makes my tongue thick and fuzzy.

Obv – in the heat of the moment. But look at that view! This is about 140 people.

And a closer view of the view – and Abby, our amazeballs officiant.

Here are a few pics to give you a good idea of the full spectrum of the Cochrane Ranche House courtyard…

So this little project was actually a last minute RobBob – Alix Special. We had no idea what to use as a stand in alter. Obviously – an arch would not do. It would block the view – THE VIEW! So RobBob found a photo she liked and of course, it was now our mission to find it or recreate it or build with our bare hands.

Naturally first emailed Gracey at Special Event Rentals who found me somewhat incoherent and an unusual state of panic as it was 2 days before the wedding. Not hearing back from her within 5 minutes sent me into a further tail spin and off RobBob and I went trying to recreate it. This is what we came up with.

LOVE IT. The bench was a bargain – $150 at some random garden store out by Cross Iron Mills. It was a) the nicest thing they had there b) the bench their workman ate their lunch on and c) because it had no price tag, I haggled with them and yay! The plants are flower bushes, very pretty and we wrapped extra burlap around them with ribbon.  Total cost” $300.

As you may have seen in my other post – this is the INSIDE of the Cochrane Ranche House reception hall, I forget what it’s called. As you can see, I opted not to have my chairs covered. Why? Because chair covers only look good for this one photograph – the one where no one is sitting in the chairs. Dollas in ma pocket, peeps.

Here is the Cochrane Ranche House reception hall with 140 people in it – barely even notice the chairs, eh?

There was plenty of room for our long head table – 12 of us in total. Lots of light. And it’s another good view of the burlap table runners!

This is the Hall of Vision, is the smaller room at the Cochrane Ranche House that we used for the dance. PERFECT for a dance – lots of room for tables and for cutting a rug! As I obviously did. Look at the gorgeous stone work, beam work and then log wall work in the photos with the band. Beaut!

The Big Reveal: Crafts

So here is how some of my crafts came out…

Coffee filter centre pieces

These came out basically exactly as I envisioned them. I, along with many friends, spent months perfecting them and then on the day of, realized that the “perfect” dye colour did not matter unless you were an centimetre away from it – that no one would have noticed if one centre piece had a brighter pink than another. REGARDLESS – they were just as envisioned.

The lanterns I used as bases were exactly right – we actually originally used them for a Gala at my work, and they came in cream. I bought the remaining lanterns off work (of which there were roughly 75) and spray painted the outside a champagne colour and the inside glass was a creamy pink. They looked great. They were also a really great base for the blooms.

We ended up not using tea lights in the lanterns because the tea lights we got had quite an orange LED bulb to it, so the blooms just were glowing orange orbs. It looked really neat but was not the effect I was looking for. At all.

I also realized that we kept the lights on in the venue the whole time soooooo ya. We didn’t really need them to also play nightlight.

 

We used the lanterns both in the reception room, as well as the cocktail room/foyer. Here’s a picture of The Cpt standing beside one sitting on a cocktail table. This one looks like one of Shinobu’s, who made the best blooms out of ALL of us.

Here’s one sitting beside the basket of flip flops that were one of my most popular – and you may remember it being incredibly rash – decisions.

We had 9 of the jumbo ones in total – 8 were used in the reception room and the one that I messed up and that was shaped like a strawberry we hung in the dance room as a disco ball substitution. See them hanging from the beams there? The room was so big – they didn’t actually have tons of impact but it was still great.

The Escort Board

I didn’t even teach you how to make my escort cards yet – FUG. Or did I? I can’t remember. But the escort cards cost me $30 in total and took about 2 hours. They were little brown envelopes, filled with lavender. I bought a shape cutter from Michaels, a Martha Stewart one, and cut out the cream parts out of stock scrapbooking paper. I took a bronze pen and wrote everyone’s names on. By hand. Like my seating cards. FML that took a long time.

But here is the Escort Board in ALL of it’s glory. I think it turned out great!

I ended up spray painting the clothes pins with a creamy colour spray paint so it matched hunky dory.

 

Below is a better shot of the actual colours of the board. Just LOOK at that handwriting.

A clothes up of the pins, the fabric, the ribbons and der, the rings.

The Aisle Markers

Ooooooooh the aisle markers.  First off, they were adorable. Just adorable. However – I couldn’t smell any lavender walking down the aisle. Not that I would have noticed even if I did. I was too busy thinking about how goofy my smile must have looked. But they served their purpose and I think they looked pretty cute.

 

The Burlap Table Runners

That burlap was one of the best decisions I made. It came in QUITE handy in a few last minute projects. I think it looked great – and now I’m turning the burlap into window dressing as a matter o’fact.

The Bouquets

The bouquets were parfait. No one could tell the difference. In fact, some people thought I had roses dyed to my colours. Other people thought that the flowers were made of coffee filters. BAM. None of them were right – they were the silk flowers from Chintz that I wrapped in coffee filters. BAM.  I can’t remember where I put the bouquets after the wedding. They are in someone’s garage probably.

The Big Reveal

So the wedding photos are in our hot little hands, finally. The truth is I almost forgot about the entire rest of the disk after I saw the sneak peaks. But voila! It’s meow time for the big reveal on what some of my crafting projects actually looked like on the day of.

We’ll do this diddy in three posts – crafts, venue and ensembles! Buckle up, kids. It’s go time.

Eff Bomb Crafting: Escort Card Display

Hiiiiiiiii - so I'm back, I'm married and I'm following through on my promise. The honeymoon was great - if you want to know a bit more about it, check out Collected Laundry Lists, my other blog about all the nothing and everything in the known universe.

So today, let's talk Escort Card Board. I had seen tons and tons that I liked and was oddly inconsistent in my preferred style. Sometimes I wanted something simple, sometimes I wanted something classic, sometimes I wanted something western and sometimes I wanted something shabby chic. I came to the same place I always come too - I like all these things, but none of them stick to my ribs (as Bethy May would say). And with price points starting at $150 - well, I couldn't. I just couldn't - besides, what's the fun of buying it when you can make it?

Tools

• Bulletin Board - mine was 4' x 3' and was $20 at Michaels on a Back to School sale. I originally looked at frames and frames and frames but you know, even with Michael's discounts galore, they would still be like $50 or $60 donairs. No thank rue.
• Fabric - on hand. The same fabric I used as backing for my table numbers. I think I got like 10 metres for $20 or something redonculous.
• Paint - tempra worked great for this project, but as usual, whatever you have on hand will do.
• Sponge brushes - to paint with
• Ribbon - Michael's special - that pinky cream ribbon I have about 800 roles of now, because the are 69 cents a roll and I am always worried I'll run out. I am now going to have to wall paper one of the rooms in my home using just pink ribbon.
• Lace - again, on hand. I used the lace for a bunch of things. I think I could 12 metres for $30 (?) and used it on about 10 different projects.
• Stapler - one of the few wedding projects I did that required a stapler.
• Patience - it is a virtue, after all. Physical cost - zero dollars. Mental cost - a zillion deep breaths.

Total Cost: Maybe $30?

Total Time: Hour and a half, with paint dry time.

So we'll start with this picture to give you an idea of how big the bulletin board was, compared to one of the frames I used for my table numbers.

Step 1: Paint that sucker.

I used the sponge brush paint the bulletin board. The board frame had a varnish on it so I was a leetle worried at first about how the paint would stick. It’s funny, because the varnish would only absorb about 80% of the paint, giving it the distressed look without me having to do any distressing or sanding on my own. HA! Victory. I applied on coat, let it dry for half an hour and did a second coat. What did end up happening was that the paint would chip off relatively easily, however it luckily enough kind of just added to the distressed look. Thank Rod.

Step 2: Line that sucker.

My next step was to line the back with creamy taupe fabric I had. This is a pretty obvious step. Cut the fabric in a rectangle big enough to fit the frame then staple it down on the sides. Be liberal with your staples, they won’t hurt it. *Note: for my first go at this, I tried to use little pins but they were too much of a hassle to push into the cork and really, weren’t right for the job. See bottom pic.

Step 3: Measure it out.

Not my usual advice – I know. But I measure out a few things before I cut.

1. First, I figured out how many rows of my little escort cards would fit on the bulletin board.
2. Then I figured out how long the ribbon that they would hang off of needed to be.
3. Lastly, I figured out how long the lace trim needed to be.

Step 4: Slap it together

My ribbon was muchos skinny so I attached it to the cord by first doing a staple directly on top, in line with the ribbon and then a second staple on top of that, making a crooked “x”. I did I think 10 rows of ribbon.

To cover all my staples, I lined the outside edges of the board with the lace trim, seen above. I secured those in the corners with again, first push pins and then finally staples.  Because the lace has a bit more too it, visually, you couldn’t see the staples at all.

FINI!

It’s not the end, my friends.

Alright alright ALRIGHT.

The wedding is in two days. Give me a break – I have been busy, have been minorly irritated, the weather is only looking okay for Friday and I had annoying wedding dreams last night where I was greeting people at their tables and not wearing my wedding dress, only wearing this crappy black dress that looked like something I wore to Jr. Prom. Great.

A lot of people have asked me if I am going to keep bride blogging after I’m not a bride anymore. Hmm. I’m conflicted. I love to blog. I love to have my own voice. But I  can not stand those girls who can’t let go of their weddings. I’ve expressed my irritations on that before – they post on the bride forums “I like peacock feathers for centre pieces. That’s what I did for my wedding. They are the most beautiful, hands down. Mrs. Smith, married July 2009” GET OUT OF HERE. I think turnover and change is good – it’s healthy. Maybe there’s another Coffee Filter Bride out there who wants to take a stab at things.

At the same time, I do have that fabulous jingle and that would be horrible to have to say goodbye to that jingle. I love that jingle.

I wanted to insert that song that Madonna sings in Evita – “So what happens now? So what happens now? Where am I going too? Where am I going too?” Um, you did too just sing along with my typing. But that song is more about breaking up, which The Cpt and I are doing the opposite of so it’s not really appropriate. So instead, here’s the song I will be walking down the aisle too on Friday.

Dry your eyes.

So HERE is what I am thinking - I will continue to blog – mostly looking at trendy stuff on the internet and then doing eff bomb crafting segments on how to rip it off for cheap. Does that sound good? Do you like the how too’s?

However, don’t think I don’t realize that I have skipped A LOT of crafts. I owe you girls BIG TIME.  Here is my I.O.U. list of crafts that will be a top priority to post as soon as I am back and married.

1. Invitations – I can’t BELIEVE I never showed you my invites
2. Programs
3. Signage
4. Escort board
5. Escort cards
6. Place cards
7. Welcome bags

I think that’s it for meow.

Byyyyyyyeeeeeeee Alix Woods… I miss me as me. I think I’m fun. Always up for a pint. Likes to ask direct questions. Doesn’t fall for that conversation trick when you don’t say anything in hopes that I will say something stupid, however I do try that trick on people and it never works. This is a narcissistic paragraph. I could try and tell you that I’m not changing, that my name is just changing. Not the case. Marriage is a part of my greater growth and change, as I said before, is good. 

My shirt always has toothpaste on it but I will always have a tampon if you need it. See you soon, lady birds. Mwuah.

Good mews!

Blogger has just launched an app for iPhone - finally. Meow, instead of painstakingly taking crappy photos with my iPhone, uploading them to my pc, editing them, writing the post with a furrowed brow and a poor sense of grammar and then getting irritated with formatting, I can eliminate the second step of uploading the photos and get write to the writing part. Yay.

Quickest of the quick wedding update: it's 7 days away and we bought a house last week. Can you see why I've been so absent? I have somewhat of a farewell post planned for next week an then post wedding will be doing a bunch of tutorials on all the crap I've thrown together hastily to make it all work.

Sound good? Look, a photo of a puppy and a sneak peak of my placecards. Mwuah!

Where’s the DIY line?

If I won $10,000 for my wedding, this is what I would do it with.

Glyncora + Mark (Wedding Video in Maui, Hawaii) NDE by Marrone from Marrone Video on Vimeo.

I’m sure you can see why I love – now please give me the $10,000 it probably cost to make this.

Like, I love it. It’s beautiful. My friend Fussy Russy sent it to me last Fall, to rub it in my face that my wedding was about a year away.

Well, GUESS WHAT FUSSY > The wedding is in 29 days and I’m ready to rock.

So I have been doing some snooping around on how I can get a video like this done. I would love a wedding video – to remember the day, to send to friends and relatives who couldn’t make it, to have just one more way to cherish it and see it from perspectives that maybe I couldn’t or didn’t and to catch moments I didn’t see.

On the one hand, there are some seriously talented videographers in Southern Alberta – SNAP Weddings has great stuff and came recommended as did Imago Cinematography. Seriously, go to their sites. Check out their stuff – that is talent.  They do beautiful work, and just seeing their demo sites makes my heart melt. I want that.

On the other hand – that’s gonna set baby back. And this is a bit of a game time decision, something that I absolutely KNOW that I want, but to call a spade a spade, I don’t have the kind of cash to make this happen at the level I know I want it.

When you are hiring a vendor, you are always taking the risk that it won’t turn out exactly how you want it. When you are doing something yourself, you are always risking that it won’t turn out the way you want it. It will come as no surprise to you, that I am someone who prefers to take risks and ownership myself, instead of having someone else to blame if something doesn’t turn out exactly how I want it. I feel bad fugging around with other peoples work – I will fug around with my own stuff until I am blue in the face.

So here is my rather hilarious dilemma.

1. Hire an amazing company to do it for me – to capture it all. For a rather large price tag.

2. Buy three good quality, hand held cameras and have select guests film for portions during the night. Then, buy a Mac and do all the editing myself.

Both will set me back in the k’s, but one less so than the other. One will be a professional job, one will be a hack job. One will leave me with a cherished memory for the rest of my life, one will leave me with a cherished memory and a MAC I need rather badly for my consulting business.

Thoughts??!?!??!

eff bomb crafting: lacey, burlap lavender bags part deux

I had a revelation this week. Literally – a light bulb went off in my head and I am thrilled decided to perk up. This is how much of a genius I am. I was at The Social Page, tearing my hair out over my programs and other day of stationary and Claudette and I were messing around with place cards. And I was telling her that blah blah my table runners are burlap and so I don’t want the place cards to be brown because that’s too brown and then she asked me what colours my linens were and I said white – and we both kind of stared at each other. And then it dawned on me that my main colour is basically cream. And that, my friends, doesn’t really work now does it?

Some people might say that’s a bit perfinicky – and 5 weeks out, don’t I deserve to finally start being perfinicky!? – but truthfully, you can’t have a cream and rose and taupe based centre piece with WHITE LINENS AND WHITE NAPKINS. Cream and white don’t match – they clash. So thankfully, I was able to send Gracey at SER a quick email. Because honestly, I would have been so disappointed had I not realized that until the day of, setting up and I have these white linens and everything else is cream and brown. Seriously, that would have caused a melt down. Crisis averted – THANK YOU Claudette and Gracey :)

So you all remember where we left off with this craft last time, non? It was a glorious crafting day – I sat in a park, I listened to Michael Buble, I was not attacked by a single bird, it was so relaxing.

This is how far we got – remember? Meow you remember. Part Une complete!

So again, from August Long’s Craftcation, I was able to not only complete the 30 lacey, burlap lavender bags but because we were at The Cpt’s parents house and in their gorgeous backyard, I was able to test them out and see how they look.

In short – this truly is a miracle craft. It turned out exactly how I pictured it in my mind. That never. Ever. Happens.

They kind of remind me of little bunny rabbits, which are my favourite ‘nanimals. Yes – I love bunnies but the animal I was in another life was clearly a giraffe. The red hair, the freckles and the spots, the long neck, the “aristocratic profile” (i.e. pronounced nasal cover). I think we can all agree the resemblance is pretty obvious.

ANYWAYS> the creating the design of the outside of the lacey burlap lavender bags was far more time consuming, and full of trial and error and than the inside. Doing the inside was easy, and satisfying! Finito!

Tools:

• Bulap, lacey bags
• Ribbon of your choosing – I use the stuff you get for .69 cents a roll at Michaels. And surprise surprise – I used cream and pink.
• Your lavender – I got my in bulk, 13 pounds for about $30 from Lavender Luxuries on eBay.
• River rocks – if you live near a river or something, collect them from a free source. I am always wary of collecting “free” rocks from parks and stuff, because usually that means the City paid for those rocks, put them there and some yuppie parent will come out and scream at you not to steal the rocks while her kid sits next to you, eating them and staring at you. So I found a whole bunch of like – I duno, vase rocks? – at Michael’s for $1 a bag. BAM!
• Something to pour the rocks and lavender into the bag with – like a funnel or a little measuring cup

Step 1: Put a handful to a cup of rocks into the bag. Creates the base. Depending on how big your bag is and how many rocks you have, but you want a heavy weight at the bottom.

Step 2: The bag should kind of be killed up about a quartre of the way. Fill up two more quartres with lavender.

I don’t even know why I took photos of these steps. The photos look like something else, he he he.

Step 3: Add some more at the top (for good measure? ) There is no reason to do this whatsoever so if you’re short on rocks, then this step is completely unnecessary.

Step 4: Here’s a step that my new “Rule of Crafting” – think liberally. Buy more than you need, cut the river longer than you think you need, use more glue – you get it. I cut the ribbon about 12’’

You can tie your bag two ways – one, take a little rubber band, pinch the bag together and secure it with the rubber band. Then, arrange the folds as you’d like, tie the ribbon around the pinch in a pretty bow and take the rubber band off.

Or you can free style it, like I did. I did okay free styling but if you get frustrated, try the rubber band thing.

VOILA! So then I did a test run of what the aisle would look like with my little aisle markers. Now, they will be spaced out way more at the Ranche House, and  I have 30 of them, so that should cover a lot of ground.

So I’m in love with them – you? In order for them to site up straight, I propped them up on little pine cones that The Cpt’s parents pine cone tree (no, I don’t know the specific species of evergreen the pinecones come from) Cute! They have a little rum-pum-bum!